speaker

If you're about to install outdoor speakers and patio lighting, your thoughts may be turning to feeble solar Malibu lights and those tacky speakers hidden in plastic rocks. Allow me to help before the neighbors stop speaking to you: Consider the Ibiza speakers from Italian lamp maker Oluce.

Standing 21 inches to 45 inches in height on a brushed-steel pole, they integrate a 20-watt compact fluorescent bulb and a small speaker just sufficient for background music. The opaline polyethylene housing and machined-metal speaker face make for a cool look, evoking the 1970s, but in a kitschless way. You can … Read more

Some insightful readers have gleaned that Crave has, on occasion, shown a weakness for unorthodox or expensive loudspeakers (preferably both).

The latest "Voyager" model from YG Acoustics fits that profile to a tee, with a Star Wars-esque design and a price of $100,000 per pair, not to mention that they tip the scales at a full 200 pounds apiece. But what really attracted us to these cast-aluminum monsters was the description from Audio Junkies: "If the YG Acoustics Voyager loudspeakers appeared in the new Transformers movie, I would expect them to promptly turn into a robot … Read more

Even in this day of permanently affixed earphones, some people insist on enjoying their music the old-fashioned way, in the open air. And cyclists are no exception.

The only problem is that some speakers created specifically for bike frames are, as colleague Jasmine France would delicately put it, fugly. iHome, however, is trying to remedy that with its "Bike to Beach Bicycle Speaker" for the iPod.

The sleek design of the $100 " iH85," as it's also known, makes it look something like a rifle scope. But MobileWhack says it's supposed to add brawn to … Read more

As noted bluntly here before, mobile phone makers have come up with some pretty ugly speakers as they attempt to morph their products into the ultimate combo music devices they hope they'll eventually become. While they continue to flail about for the right answer, LG has decided to make a pair that goes back to its cellular roots with a clamshell design.

From a distance, one might actually mistake its latest Verizon Wireless stereo speakers for the handset itself because of their hinged design. MobileWhack says the speakers, which will work with most of Verizon's V-Cast phones, are … Read more

Desktop speakers come and desktop speakers go, but good design lasts... well, if not forever, at least a mighty long time. Admire the smooth surfaces, enjoy the groovy mathematical curviness, appreciate the metallic sheen as you imagine yourself speeding through the galaxy on your own little cubicle-spaceship, with terrific audio. Ah! Space--the final frontier of hyperbole.

Listed today at one-third its original price of $99, this is a well-liked speaker set for folks who want good audio at a great price and with a very small desk-top footprint.

What: Harman JBL Creature II speaker system How much: $33.51 Shipping: … Read more

Until MP3 players and phones get built-in speakers with truly big sound, we may be stuck with mutant-looking plug-in versions to let loose our inner boombox. Various companies are come up with stopgap solutions that may not look pretty but are at least aimed at delivering beach-boardwalk volume without blowing up.

One of them is the "PodXtreme," which won't win any beauty contests but claims to have a bass that no standard handheld's built-in speakers can come close to achieving, at least not yet, according to OhGizmo. The secret is something that looks like a … Read more

Lately, it seems that more tech products are getting into leather (or some synthetic version thereof), even if they're not even available yet. The most recent example is the Audio Pro Porto seen on Chip Chick.

There are countless iPod docks and speakers on the market, of course, but this one tries to distinguish itself with a vertical design and casing that allows it to be more portable than other home systems. The leather (or leather-looking) exterior has a nicely stiched handle on top so you can make it into upright boombox as long as your triceps don't … Read more

It may come as a shock, but we like speakers here at Crave. Especially the weird-looking ones.

But honestly, why the obsession with eyeballs? Yes, we understand the whole spherical sound explanation, but still--do they all have to look like something created by H.G. Wells?

Apparently so, if Proclaim Audioworks has anything to say about it. The company says the creepy cases used for its DMT-100 model "are the best shape to originate sound because of their characteristically smooth frequency response," according to SCI FI Tech. We'll take their word for it. Even if we could … Read more

You do? Good. Then these are perfect for you. The Toyo I-Lit TwinSpin speaker system, a Japanese import, is a set of desktop speakers that do look peculiarly similar to eyeballs. But that's not all. They've got LEDs in them that pulsate to the beat of your music, and said LEDs change color along with the volume. They're $69.

Never mind that it's a little bit creepy to have a set of giant eyeballs on your desk playing music. It's a bit Big Brother-ish, even. But I suppose we can all deal with that.

I … Read more